Best 145 quotes of Warren G. Bennis on MyQuotes

A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people's lives, for better or worse, sometime forever and ever.

All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.

All great leaders constantly seek new information and new ways of thinking.

All of great leaders evidence four basic qualities that are central to their ability to lead: adaptive capacity, the ability to engage others through shared meaning, a distinctive voice, and unshakeable integrity. These four qualities mark all exemplary leaders, whatever their age, gender, ethnicity, or race.

Almost without exception, members of great groups see themselves as winning underdogs, as a feisty David hurling fresh ideas at a big, backward-looking Goliath. They always have an "enemy.

A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless... someone's got to make a wake up call.

A passion for continual learning, a refined, discerning ear for the moral and ethical consequences of their actions, and an understanding of the purposes of work and human organisations

Around the world, the generals are being ousted, and the poets are taking charge.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

Charisma is the result of effective leadership, not the other way around.

Coaching will become the model for leaders in the future... I am certain that leadership can be learned and that terrific coaches... facilitate learning.

Companies which get misled by their own success are sure to be blind sided.

Create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place, and then translate that vision into a reality.

Create strategic alliances and partnerships: Now and in years to come, shrewd leaders will create allegiances with other organizations whose fates are correlated with their own.

Effective leaders make a full commitment to be a learner, to keep increasing and nourishing their knowledge and wisdom.

Embrace error: Create an atmosphere in which prudent risk taking is strongly encouraged.

Emotional intelligence, more than any other factor, more than I.Q. or expertise, accounts for 85% to 90% of success at work... I.Q. is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn't make you a star. Emotional intelligence can.

Encourage dissent: Leaders should have associates who have contrary views, who are devil's advocates, "variance sensors" who can tell them the difference between what is expected and what is really happening, between what they want to hear and what they need to hear. There are too many naked emperors running around today.

Encourage reflective backtalk: Leaders know the importance of having someone in their lives who will unfailingly and fearlessly tell them the truth.

Every one of the geezers who continues to play a leadership role has one quality of overriding importance: neotony. The dictionary definition is that neotony, a zoological term, involves "the retention of youthful qualities throughout old age." It is more than merely retaining a youthful appearance, although that is often part of it. Neotony is the retention of all those wonderful qualities that we associate with youth: curiosity, playfulness, eagerness, fearlessness, warmth, energy.

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity.

Expect the best from your people and they will usually deliver but your expectations must be realistic.

Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.

Find the appropriate balance of competing claims by various groups of stakeholders. All claims deserve consideration but some claims are more important than others.

First and foremost, effective leaders must continuously strive to make themselves smarter and better at making judgments.

Followers who tell the truth, and leaders who listen to it, are an unbeatable combination.

Frank Gehry designs buildings that make other architects half his age (he's 78) gasp with envy. Neotony is what makes him lace up his skates and whirl around the ice rink, while visionary buildings come to life and dance in his head.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.

Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.

Great groups deliver great results. And for everyone involved in a great group, great work is its own reward.

Great groups give the lie to the remarkably persistent but incorrect notion that successful organizations are the lengthened shadow of a great woman or man. However, each great group has a strong leader. In fact, great groups and great leaders create each other.

Great Groups need to know that the person at the top will fight like a tiger for them.

Great leaders love talent and know where to find it. They surround themselves with talented people who can work effectively together.

I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be.

I'd always rather err on the side of openness. But there's a difference between optimum and maximum openness, and fixing that boundary is a judgment call. The art of leadership is knowing how much information you're going to pass on - to keep people motivated and to be as honest, as upfront, as you can. But, boy, there really are limits to that.

If great teams don't have an "enemy," they create one for themselves because, as former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta pointed out, "you can't have a war without one.

If I had to reduce the responsibilities of a good follower to a single rule, it would be to speak truth to power.

If I were to give off-the-cuff advice to anyone trying to institute change, I would say, "How clear is the metaphor?

If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.

If you're the leader, you've got to give up your omniscient and omnipotent fantasies - that you know and must do everything. Learn how to abandon your ego to the talents of others.

Ineffective leaders often act on the advice and counsel of the last person they talked to.

In life, change is inevitable. In business, change is vital.

Innovation- any new idea-by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.

In order to serve its purpose, a vision has to be a shared vision.

In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting demands, often under great time pressure, leaders must make decisions and take effective actions to assure the survival and success of their organizations. This is how leaders add value to their organizations. They lead them to success by exercising good judgment, by making smart calls when especially difficult and complicated decisions simply must be made, and then ensuring that they are well executed.

It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change.

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation.